Apologies for the slow pace of posts on the blog of late. Between time off, some business travel, some personal stuff, and the fact that, well, it's the dead of summer and just about everything seems to slow down around this time, I have not been as focused on the blog of late.

But I did want to just shoot out a quick update about a few things that are either interesting or important to me these days (making the huge assumption some or all might be important to folks who read this blog).

So here goes...

1. The HR Tech Conference early registration savings of $500 is only good until July 31 (Monday). Combine that with my discount code STEVE200 and get an additional $200 off your registration. But act fast because after Monday, rates start creeping up.

2. I am really excited about all the great HR Happy Hour Network podcasts that have been released in the last few months. Head over to the HR Happy Hour home page to check out the latest HR Happy Hour shows, We're Only Human with Ben Eubanks, and HR MarketWatch with George LaRocque. And big thanks to HR Happy Hour Show sponsor Virgin Pulse.

3. I finally got on board with the Amazon Echo and have had fun figuring out what I can do with it and the Alexa ecosystem. It is a pretty cool piece of technology, even if most of the folks that have them are not doing much more than setting timers and playing music. But in only a week I find myself frustrated with the other bits of technology that I have to interact with can't all respond to voice commands. Once you get started with the voice as the input paradigm, you don't want to go back to typing, or swiping, or pressing buttons. I am looking forward to seeing which HR tech vendor starts to really advance voice interaction with their tech this year.

5. And one more plug/link, I was a guest on the Strong Suit podcast a couple of weeks ago talking about the HR Tech that growing companies need, and what kinds of HR tech they may not need. It was fun to be a guest instead of the host, thanks Jeff Hyman for inviting me.

6. Some random links of things I probably would have written about this week, (and my still write about)